PORTLAND – Current and former members of the Bend Metro Park and Recreation District testified in federal court Friday that they weren’t alerted to the severity of the rifts in the organization until a private investigator filed his report.

”This was like the perfect storm coming together,” former board member Rep. Chuck Burley, R-Bend, said of the months leading up to former Executive Director Carrie Ward’s 2002 suspension, investigation and firing.

Burley said claims that employees were misappropriating district property, complaints directed at the executive director and at least one other manager, and the formation of an employee union rocked the board, as members were completing a performance review and ”plan of improvement” for Ward.

The board voted to suspend her in March 2002 and hired a private investigator to look into the allegations of mismanagement and unprofessional conduct, sparking outrage in the Bend community. Board member Mary Evers resigned her seat and Ward’s supporters instigated an ultimately unsuccessful effort to recall the remaining four members.

Upon the release of a final report from the investigator, two months after Ward was suspended, the board voted to fire her and pay 12 months’ severance, in accordance with her contract.

Roxanne Farra, Ward’s attorney in the $800,000 lawsuit she brought against the district, announced Friday in U.S. District Court that the plaintiff’s side rested.

The lawsuit alleges board members discriminated against Ward because she is a woman, defamed her and fired her in retaliation for protected speech.

Burley, current board member Don Smith and former board members Jim Young and Ron Delaney are named as co-defendants in the suit.

Former board member Burley and current board member Smith said Friday that, as board members, their link to the staff and their authority began and ended with the executive director.

Smith testified that this limitation kept them from realizing the full extent of divisions within the district until private investigator William Herrick released his report.

”There seemed to be a real problem between the executive director and the staff that we didn’t know about, and also between staff and (other) staff that we didn’t know about,” Smith said. ”And conduct in staff meetings that I believed to be unprofessional.”

Smith said, however, that disciplining employees for unprofessional behavior wasn’t within the power of the board.

According to its governance policies, the board could only mete out discipline to the executive director, he said. It was the executive director’s job to see that employees who ran afoul of district policy were reprimanded.

At the same time, previous witnesses testified that the board placed a ”comment box,” inviting notes from the staff, in the park services department.

In earlier testimony, employees said the box allowed staff to circumvent existing grievance procedures and broke the policy designating the executive director as the link between staff and the board.

Burley testified that he was uncomfortable when Ward disciplined an employee for misappropriating district property in 2000, notifying the board after the fact.”Ron (Delaney) and I asked if there had been any consideration of criminal charges, any possibility of restitution,” he said. ”The concern I had was she could have run that by the board – so she could get that sort of feedback ahead of time.”

Burley said he began to question Ward’s handle on staff concerns when he learned the employees in the park services department had formed a union in late 2001.

”This is the type of thing your management should not be unaware of. They should know there are problems out there brewing,” he said. ”I thought, if it was that bad, she should have known a lot sooner.”

The investigative report was publicized May 14, 2002. Ward was publicly fired three days later.

Tom Brown, an expert witness for the plaintiff, testified that a ”conservative” estimate of Ward’s lost wages and benefits, including sick leave, medical benefits and vacation time, totaled more than $288,000 over five years.

Brown, a former certified private accountant and a certified valuation analyst, said he based the figure on Ward’s earnings and the value of her medical coverage, retirement benefits and time off, adjusted for inflation. He deducted her 12 months’ severance pay and subsequent earnings from the final amount.

He said he did not attempt to place a dollar figure on emotional distress or damage to her reputation caused by her termination by the district board.

Ward testified previously that it took more than three years to find another full-time job. Currently, she is the director for the Sisters Organization for Activities and Recreation.

The eight-member jury, which is evenly split between men and women, is expected to render a verdict by Jan. 27. They must be unanimous in their decision, according to presiding Judge Garr King.